INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABILITY AT SPANISH UNIVERSITIES ABSTRACT

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1 INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABILITY AT SPANISH UNIVERSITIES DAVID ALBA 1, DORA BLANCO 2 ABSTRACT The paper describes the situation in terms of sustainability concern at Spanish universities. In particular we focus on a survey that was carried out recently by Autonomous University of Madrid. It analyses engagement and planning for sustainability at universities and their consequences. Another part of this work outlines the conclusions of a Seminar of the Spanish universities on indicators for sustainability. We explain the actual situation and the basis for the future work. As an example of indicator for sustainability we analyze the ecological footprint study developed by the University of Santiago de Compostela. 1 PhD student at Environmental Education PhD Programme. Autónoma University of Madrid. C/Darwin, 2. E MADRID. Telf david.alba@uam.es 2 Coordinator of the Sustainable Development Plan at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Sustainable Development Office. Casa da Balconada. Rúa Nova, Santiago de Compostela. A Coruña. Spain. Telf plands@usc.es

2 1. INTRODUCTION Higher Education Institutions (HEI s) have to be able to implement sustainability; being coherent with what they preach at the classroom level and with what they research in the labs. Universities must assume the challenges of minimising their ecological footprint and environmental impact; enhancing their quality and raising environmental awareness of their community through the acquisition of new sustainable behaviours and ways of life. There is an increasing number of HEI s engaged with sustainability. However, the commitment to act for sustainability is still a voluntary option assumed only by those institutions that want to become a model of sustainable development. Since the 90 s, several international congresses and conferences have focused on fostering sustainability from the university. Talloires Declaration, Copernicus Charter and others, are the main frameworks for Universities involved in sustainability. In 2002, the Spanish Universities Rector s Commitee approved the creation of a working group on environmental quality and sustainable development at Spanish Universities [9]. One of their main goals is to encourage the participation of Spanish HEI s by means of the exchange of experiences and through the development of joint projects. This group is made up of thirty universities, and its most important actions are the thematic seminars organised within different conferences and workshops twice a year. In the next sections of this paper we outline the actual situation of the Spanish Universities in terms of commitment with the sustainability and action for the sustainability. In particular we focus on a survey that was carried out recently by one of the authors. It analyses engagement and planning for sustainability and their consequences. Another part of this work outlines the conclusions of the Seminar of the Spanish universities on indicators for sustainability. This was one of the seminars of the working group on environmental quality and sustainable development described in the previous paragraph. 2. THE SITUATION IN THE SPANISH UNIVERSITIES In this section we present some data extracted from a survey on the situation of the Spanish Universities concerning the sustainability (specific technical units, inclusion of sustainability in strategic plans...) The study was developed by the Autonomous University of Madrid during 2006 [1]. This research contains a description of the processes undertaken by the Spanish public Universities in order to raise the environmental quality and awareness of their communities; we have focused our study in the activities related to environmental management and nonformal education for sustainable development. The survey provides information about seven variables, inspired by those employed by the United Leaders for a Sustainable Future in their Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire [3,10]: environmental characterization; origin of sustainability activities; engagement and planning for sustainability; structures of action and

3 relations with stakeholders; sustainability interpretation and, finally, assessment and monitoring of action for sustainability. A total of 35 HEI s answered the survey, almost the 70% of Spanish public Universities. As we expected, these Universities are mainly those which have already started their path to sustainability. From the study we conclude that the average size of a university community is around people. Campuses are mainly in middle-sized cities. All of them have a large extension of green areas which are managed by the universities themselves. Their main perceived problems are: transport and mobility (the most used means of transportation is the car); waste (different waste managing systems exist at the different Universities) and energy consumption (although almost 70% have solar energy installations, they are far from the energetic autonomy). The main conclusion extracted from the survey is that 75% of the 73 Spanish universities have started to act for sustainability and ESD. The survey also reveals that action for sustainability started in the Spanish Universities around 1992, with the influence of Rio 92. There is also a group who started their sustainability activities in 2003, with the creation of the sustainability working group of Spanish Universities Rector s Committee [8]. The first initiatives were technical actions such as waste management or the creation of green areas. The creation of technical units to coordinate and execute environmental activities was also one of the first steps. Commitment for sustainability appears at the official university commitments at the majority of the universities that were studied. Specific positions assuming the responsibility of sustainability policies have been created at each University, some of them depend directly from a Vice-Chancellor. There is a specific budget for sustainability at these universities ranging from to We have identified 23 technical units responsible for Sustainability and ESD action, summing a staff of more than 130 people. These units are named, mainly, offices (ecocampus office, green office or environment office) or services (environmental and health and safety service). Their actions are largely focused on waste management; energy efficiency and saving, sustainable transport and mobility and ESD activities. Assessment and reporting initiatives were found only at a handful of universities. In the case of ESD activities, only 40% of the studied units carry out activities focussed on curricular greening, because these sustainability units are not academic departments and their budget is not large enough to assume such a complex project. They mostly carry out non-formal educational activities such as conferences or exhibitions; environmental volunteer programmes or campaigns to raise environmental awareness. The progressive creation of sustainability units is a good step towards sustainability policy at Spanish Universities. We have identified a common pattern in the process of building a sustainable University. The first steps are parallel actions related to curricular greening and environmental management (mainly about toxic waste). Then non-formal educational activities are implemented, and other sectors such as resource use, climate change, transportation and mobility, etc. are contemplated. The final step comes about when relationships between academic and non-formal education and sustainable management exist. And they are promoted and planned by the sustainability unit with the co-operation of other academic and technical units or, even, universities, NGO s, companies and local, regional or national administrations.

4 3. A COMMON FRAMEWORK TO INDICATORS FOR SPANISH SUSTAINABLE UNIVERSITIES As we have concluded from our study, Spanish Universities are not sustainable but they are making efforts to be more sustainable. The question is: how do they know that they are not sustainable? What kind of data or information do they need to plan their sustainability strategy? This information can be arranged using indicators that provide in a synthetic way a means to track the state and progress of the sustainability university. The translation from data or information to indicators is not a simple step. It is necessary to identify what data or information can reflect a tendency or variation of sustainability in one aspect or part of the university. Thus not all data or information may act as an indicator. Sometimes, we have more information that we need. Sometimes, more information than it is necessary is offered. Other times data can not be found to support our impressions or intuitions about some changes. Indicators have to be designed equilibrating available and relevant information. Indicators are fundamental tools in sustainable management and education at universities. However they can not be designed as isolated elements; they have to be created in the framework of the plan. These were the assumptions that guided the 7th Seminar of the sustainability working group of the Spanish Rector s Conference that was held at the University of Santiago de Compostela in June 2007, organized by this university in co-operation with the Autonomous University of Madrid [8]. The objectives of this seminar were: - To exchange experiences about the design and use of indicators for gauging sustainability and monitoring the action for sustainable universities. - To analyze the use of sustainable indicators and reports as tools for work, dissemination and awareness raising. - To lay the foundations for the analysis and evaluation of the sustainability process at the Spanish universities. The seminar was designed as a working space not only to benchmark but also to collectively create the framework of the use of indicators in order to make Spanish universities more sustainable. It was organised as three parallel workgroups, each of them devoted to one of these areas: 1) Making progress on measuring sustainability and monitoring action plans for sustainable universities. 2) Towards a common definition of assessment criteria for sustainability processes at universities 3) The importance of communicating: sustainability reports

5 These areas can be understood as stages in the use of sustainability indicators. First, it is necessary to know how sustainable a university is, then actions must be taken in order to be more sustainable; afterwards the progress or failures on the process must be evaluated and successes and challenges communicated. The division of the seminar in these areas was very important for avoiding a simple enumeration of indicators so that participants were forced to think about the different characteristics of indicators related to their different utilities. The first working group recognized several progresses on gauging sustainability and monitoring the action plan for sustainability. They found that indicators for gauging sustainability can be used to monitor action plans. Some essential areas of diagnosis of sustainability at universities were established: - Environmental attributes: resources consumption and waste management, operational activities, spatial planning and infrastructure, transport and mobility. - Education: curricular greening, raising awareness, environmental education and communication - Environmental and sustainable research. - Social, political and economic commitment / corporate social responsibility They admitted that environmental attributes are the most developed, consequently it is necessary to make efforts to define social and economic indicators related to sustainability at universities. They appreciated the ecological footprint as a good tool to communicate the state of sustainability at one university although it has to be used with caution to compare sustainability between universities.

6 CASE STUDY: THE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA The ecological footprint is a well-known indicator for describing the ecological behavior of a community that allows a comparison in terms of consumption of natural resources between different communities. Although it is usually related to a particular continent, country or town, recently it has been applied for describing the ecological behavior of all kinds of smaller enclosed communities. This is the case of educational institutions. In 2005 the Sustainable Development Office of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) began the study of the ecological footprint of the USC [6] adapting the popular methodology developed by Rees and Wakernagel [7]. The main problem in the adaptation of the methodology to the characteristics of the university was the lack of converters from the consumption of different resources to quantities of CO 2 emitted. We followed some indications of a previous experience carried out in Spain by the Technical University of Catalonia [3] and considering different studies in the literature. We selected a group of factors responsible for the CO 2 emissions. These are mainly associated to: energy consumption (electricity, diesel oil, natural gas and water); emissions related to mobility, emissions associated to the construction of buildings and emissions related to the consumption of water, and finally the ecological cost of the waste produced. The following and more difficult task of the study was the collection of data that, in some cases, were disseminated among different technical and administrative units of the university. In other cases simply the necessary data had not been recorded before. For example, for the case of calculating the emissions related to mobility or the habits of using recycled and virgin fiber paper and recycling of the used paper, it was necessary to carry out a poll and statistically extrapolating data. Given these drawbacks the study was first performed in 2005 only for two faculties of the USC, as a pilot project. Now it is being implemented for the whole USC based on data from From the 2005 study we concluded that the value for the University School for Primary Education was of 0,15 hectares per person and year and for the case of the Faculty and Economics and Business Administration was of 0,13. The first one would need a forest of 344 times its area for absorbing the CO2 emissions associated with its activity. In the case of the second faculty it would require 193 times its area. The main agents responsible for this data are in order of importance: the emissions associated to mobility (52% and 63% respectively) and the electricity consumption (21% and 20% respectively). As a result of the second workgroup, the participants appreciated the importance of assessment to improve processes for sustainable universities. They also identified the necessity of incorporating sustainability like other attribute of quality at the universities. Assessment was defined like the process of collecting information to evaluate the sustainability processes at universities in function of criteria. Assessment has to be useful to decision makers, and has to inspired actions to improve the action plan for sustainable universities. A set of criteria was identified, however it s necessary to work further to define exactly the indicators responding to this criteria. We classified criteria in these groups: - About the characteristics of the planning process: time and spatial frame, autonomy, coherence, consistency, assessment - About the participation on the planning process: institutional and personal commitment, information, cooperation, coordination, co-responsibility, communication and participation. - About the treatment of the concept of sustainability: transversal conception, interpretation of the concept of sustainability - About the effects of the implementation of the action plan: learning, efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency, impact.

7 Finally, the third workgroup concluded that each university should periodically elaborate a sustainability report including not only environmental indicators but also social and economic ones. Those indicators should be related to sustainability goals that have to inspire the strategic frame of the university. The sustainability report should have different characteristics, depending on the stage of commitment of the university to sustainable development. The first and simpler report could be a compendium of the activities developed and could be made even without a clear commitment of the institution. In a second stage, a sustainability report should be produced with a clear methodology and include an integrated vision of sustainability. In this case economic and social indicators should be included. And there should be a unit, taking charge of implementing the sustainability action plan. This plan should exist as a consequence of the institutional commitment. In the third stage the sustainability report should comprise an integrated perspective of the sustainability at the university, including the three dimensions: environmental, economic and social. At this stage the sustainability unit should have a permanent structure and budget and the sustainability report should comprise the regular monitoring of the selected and internally validated indicators. This stage is characterized by the contact with stakeholders from outside the university, who should validate actions and indicators assessing a more complete sustainability report. 4. CONCLUSIONS. Spanish universities are in a crucial moment. Most of them have started to work for improving their sustainability and, in particular, their environmental situation. So, they have some experience to check and assess, beginning by the concept of sustainability used in their frames and action plans. Generally, actions are carried out by an isolated department or unit, with the best of intentions but with scarce resources and support. It is necessary to face sustainability action with an integral vision. That is the reason for the design of integral systems of indicators concerning the contribution of university for sustainability. As shown in the next figure, this contribution can be arranged using three dimensions, related to the three types of impacts that universities have on sustainability: the direct impact, much in the same way as any other human activity; the indirect impact, deriving from the action of their students when they finish their studies; and the symbolic impact, that comprises all the actions by universities to make communities more sustainable.

8 IMPACTS FROM UNIVERSITY TO SUSTAINABILITY UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABILITY Direct impact: human activities Sustainability action plan at universities Criteria/Indicators for sustainable universities Indirect impact: student Education for sustainability programs Criteria/Indicators for education for sustainability at universities Symbolic impact: institution Participation in sustainable communities Criteria/Indicators for sustainable communities Two roles must be assigned to the assessment tool for university contribution to sustainability: a) As an auto-assessment tool, with allows each HEI s to design and develop its action plan for sustainability, in a integral way that includes all three dimensions of the impact of university. b) As a tool to compare, with consistent information, the progress of each university and benchmark it within institutions To design these tools, indicators and criteria, the participation of the different universities is necessary. This participation can be led by the Sustainability Working Group of the Spanish Universities Rector s Committee, as in other countries such as Mexico, where the COMPLEXUS net of universities [5] is promoting several workshops to build their system of sustainability indicators in common; or the USA and Canada where the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (ASSHE) [2] is developing the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, STARS. The sharing of experience for building the assessment tool described should be the next step followed by the Spanish Universities.

9 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] ALBA, D., (2006) Análisis de los procesos de gestión y educación para la sostenibilidad en las universidades públicas españolas. Environmental Education PhD Program. Autónoma University of Madrid. [2] ASSHE, Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System STARS. Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education: < [3] BUSQUETS, P.; JORGE, J. La petjada ecológica del EUPM. Tecnichal University of Catalonia and Environmental Department of the Gobern of Catalonia, [4] CALDER, W. & CLUGSTON, R. M., (2003) Progress toward sustainability in Higher Education. ERL News and Analysis Environmental Law Institute. Pp [5] COMPLEXUS Mexican Universities Workshops for Sustainability Indicators: < [6] LÓPEZ, N,; LÓPEZ, R. and TABOADA, J.L. (2007) Impacto ambiental en centros da USC, University of Santiago de Compostela, [7] REES, W., WACKERNAGEL, M., (1996) Our ecological footprint. Reducing human impact on Earth, New Society Publisher, Canadá. [8] 7 th Seminar of Sustainability Working Group of Spanish Universities Rector s Committee about Indicators and Sustainability at Universities Santiago de Compostela University. 19 th and 20 th June 2007: < _amb_act.htm > [9] Sustainability Working Group of Spanish Universities Rector s Committee: < > [10] ULSF, (2001) ULSF s Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire. <